The present invention relates to a product manipulating unit.
More specifically, the present invention relates to a unit for manipulating products such as food products (e.g. sweets, chocolates) and/or packets for food or various other types of products, which are variously manipulated for forming wrappings about or for simply surface treating the products.
Known product manipulating units normally comprise a conveying device presenting at least one conveying head for feeding a respective product along a given supply path extending through a number of manipulating stations; and, for each manipulating station, a manipulating device in turn comprising an operating head movable along a respective work path.
The conveying head of such known manipulating units is a passive type, i.e. is simply capable of conveying the respective product along the supply path with no change in its own orientation, whereas each operating head is an adaptive type, i.e. featuring respective orienting devices for so moving the head as to adapt the orientation of the head and the work path to the supply path traveled by the conveying head and respective product at the relative manipulating station.
Known manipulating units of the above type present several technical and functional drawbacks. To begin with, providing each manipulating station with an operating head and respective orienting devices makes for a unit of relatively complex design, which is both difficult and expensive to produce. Moreover, to synchronize the conveying and operating heads, each operating head requires numerous highly complex adjustments, and involves a good deal of in-service maintenance, thus impairing the output capacity of the unit.